100 Favorite Dishes 2012: No. 37, Sashimi at Dadami

This year leading up to our annual Best of Houston® issue, we're counting down our 100 favorite dishes in Houston. This list comprises our favorite dishes from the last year, dishes that are essential to Houston's cultural landscape and/or dishes that any visitor (or resident) should try at least once.

The centerpiece of any group meal at Dadami is undoubtedly the giant boat of raw flounder, salmon, sea anemone and sea squirt that arrives after waves of banchan and other smaller Korean dishes have already hit your table.

And when I say a "boat," I mean that the sashimi arrives in a giant wooden boat (giant for a table, small for an actual body of water, that is). It's this raw fish that places such as Dadami specialize in. Dadami is a Korean restaurant that mostly deals in hwe, or Korean-style sushi and sashimi. There are several notable differences between Korean and Japanese sushi, of course, so don't go in expecting hand rolls or spicy tuna.

Instead, you'll order a meal by the number of people at your table and the restaurant sends out course after course until you simply can't eat any more. Once you've finished your sashimi boat, it will be taken away and eventually replaced with a hot-and-sour jjigae soup made with the bones and head of the flounder which was freshly fileted for the sashimi. (Although it will be far from the last item to hit your table.)

Hwe dup bab makes a light, refreshing lunch.

But if ordering and eating in a huge group isn't for you, try Dadami during the day. That's when its $7.99 lunch specials offer you the chance to indulge in a different kind of Korean hwe dish: sashimi salad, or hwe dup bab.

Raw flounder is served on a bed of greens and warm sushi-style rice, topped with three kinds of masago and a little crab for good measure. Mix it all up with some soy sauce or spicy gojuchang for another version of sashimi unlike most you've probably tried before.